NATIVE AMERICANS

WEAPONS OF MASS DESTRUCTION

Part I - A Pattern for the New Order

"If used in numbers, atomic bombs not only
can nullify any nation's military effort, but can demolish its social
and economic structure and prevent their re-establishment for long
periods of time. With such weapons, especially if employed in
conjunction with other weapons of mass destruction such as pathogenic
bacteria, it is quite possible to depopulate vast areas of the
earth's surface, leaving only vestigial remnants of man's material
works." Report of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Operations Crossroads,
June 30, 1947 (17).
As we explore the issue of weapons of mass destruction in
conjunction with the history of the Native Americans, the picture
that will be drawn is that this statement to the Joint Chiefs of
Staff is not a passing statement of recognition, but a declaration of
what the true reality is for all secretive and deadly munitions.

As we examine past history comparing it with
the present, it will show its demonic head desiring to exterminate
not just the "vestigial remnant[s]" of man's works, but, man himself.
This war is not limited to an enemy, an enemy's weapons or
capabilities, but against all life forms. Often the true intent is
hidden under the need to fight off a supposed enemy, as in the cold
war era or the need to protect the country against a "possible"
invasion of like kind such as the Iraqi pretense. The need to protect
against an invasion from without is, in reality, a facade to draw the
gaze from the enemy within.

The most secret weapons of mass
destruction are combined with known WMD to complete the
extermination. As one rock and roll group called MegaDeath advertised
their tour as "Count Down to Extinction", even so, those who are in
the power to wield these weapons seem hell-bent on total
annihilation.

It seems that man can never learn peace from
his bloody past. If man has learned anything at all from his past, it
is how to wage massive destruction with lightning speed on a scale
that is staggering to the imagination. This bloodthirsty dragon of
unequaled carnage hides under the gentle lamblike mask of peace and
brotherhood.

A Los Angeles Times article dated
Friday, December 26, 1997 says "the United States is poorly prepared
to defend its armed forces." The release goes further to lament that,
"officials acknowledge that they are taking only the first steps to
develop the high-technology gear, medicine and organization needed to
respond to germ arsenals believed held by 16 nations and, perhaps,
terrorist groups as well. One top official who refused to be
identified said, 'We have a long way to go.'" Why should such a
powerful nation as the U.S. be so fearful of an attack from WMD
munitions? Can we hear in present-day fears a growing realization
that past injustices are lining up at the door for an accounting?

How has WMD warfare been used in the past?
What really are our capabilities? Is the current situation realistic
or is it a highly manufactured scare tactic designed to hide another
more insidious threat? Should we all rush to government agencies like
lemmings who rush to the cliff, rolling up our fearful patriotic
sleeves as we go, demanding anthrax inoculations? Or should we
inquire into past "inoculations" to see what they have done to those
who took them? What are the real purposes behind the manufacture and
stockpiling of WMD? Who is the biggest conspirator in the use and
abuse of WMD? Saddam? Russia, or should we look within our own locked
files? A nightmarish journey down a road of unequaled terror begins
as we examine the well-worn freeway to extinction by weapons of mass
destruction.

WHAT ARE WEAPONS OF MASS DESTRUCTION?

In regards to defining weapons of mass
destruction, the term, as used today, may be considered relevant to
the times. "Mass" according to the dictionary is, "a great amount or
number, the majority." If there are only 100 members of a group and
99 are murdered, then 99% of the population was massacred. It may not
be a Hiroshima type destruction, but it is a mass destruction.
Today's nuclear bomb is a far greater weapon of mass destruction in
comparison to the first atomic bomb. If we were to go backwards in
time, we would find that "little boy" dropped on Hiroshima was the
greatest weapon of mass destruction ever concocted in comparison to
all previous technology. A submachine gun may be termed a weapon of
mass destruction in comparison to a single shot rifle not only in
effectiveness, but in terms of capability to kill many more people. A
repeating rifle with a long range scope could be termed a weapon of
mass destruction in comparison to a knife. What are known as WMD
today may become obsolete if time should march on and new weapons are
manufactured.

Another way of seeing weapons of mass
destruction correctly would come from comparing one nation's
technology with another. When one nation has only a cavalry on horses
and another has tanks, those with the tanks would possess the weapons
of mass destruction in comparison, even though they may exist
contemporaneously. The tribe with bows and arrows faces a weapon of
mass destruction when their rival has a Hotchkiss gun or a howitzer.
The massive destruction may not come from a single application
weapon, but, if the end result is a mass killing, could not the
application apply? With CBW, a single weapon such as anthrax is, in
reality, many thousands of germs disseminated over a large area.

While it may not be thought of as chemical
biological warfare from a modern perspective, CBW has been around a
long time when current definitions are applied. In past wars, men
have poisoned wells, burned crops and catapulted rotting dead bodies
infected with disease over the walls of their enemies. Modern warfare
has become increasingly sophisticated in these applications. We may
not catapult a dead body over a wall, but any chemical or biological
agent introduced into the sovereign nation of another producing
injury or death will qualify. If we examine past U.S. history and
compare it to the current day applications of CBW, we can draw some
striking similarities and parallels in the present use of WMD. This
may also show us where prevalent U.S. practices will lead in the
future and the purpose for its steady production despite popular
protest.

Most WMD are very secretive. The greater
the destructive force, the greater the need for secrecy. During the
first atomic bomb construction it was referred to as simply the
"gadget." What is revealed about current WMD proves that far greater
weapons exist, for the secrets about "little boy" were not exposed
until after it was used openly. Most WMD hide under names that are
the exact opposite of what they really are. Places where weapons are
manufactured hide under names belying the true operations within.
"Little boy" was not "little" in terms of destruction.

The CIA during the cold war hid torture
cells in "hospitals" and placed anthrax in asthma spray bottles.
These topics will be explored in future articles, but the point to be
understood is that in war the label does not always describe the
contents. The name does not describe the article. The name of an
institution does not reveal the nature of the activities carried on
within its walls. With these thoughts in mind we now journey into the
past and examine America's treatment of its first citizens, the
Native Americans.

The Discovery of America Brings Annihilation

When Christopher Columbus landed on
Hispaniola, the estimates for the number of Native Americans were
astronomical in comparison to what the number is today. Estimates
place 800 separate nations, with one-hundred fifty language families
and 1,500 to 2,000 dialects. Population studies show between
seventy-five to one-hundred forty-five million inhabitants in North
and South America. By 1890, the number in North America had been
reduced to 250,000. Total tribes have been annihilated.
(18). While ecologists lament the extinction of the
dodo bird and the senseless slaughter of whales, what is this in
comparison to the total eradication of a race of men created in the
image of God?

Sizing up the weapons of the natives
Columbus noted, "The people of this island and of all the other
islands which I have found and seen . . . have no iron or steel
weapons, nor are they capable of using them, although they are
well-built people of handsome stature, because they are wondrous
timid." Going on to describe the natives he says, "They are so
artless and free with all they possess, that no one would believe it
without having seen it. Of anything they have, if you ask them for
it, they never say no; rather they invite the person to share it, and
show as much love as if they were giving their hearts; and whether
the thing be of value or small price, at once they are content with
whatever little thing of whatever kind may be given them."
(18). With no weapons to fight ironclad soldiers
who came brandishing swords and guns led by trained man-eating dogs,
the Spanish met little resistance from these docile naked people.
(1)

When the Spaniards came to North America,
Europe had already been ravaged with smallpox, measles, bubonic
plague, diphtheria, influenza, yellow fever, typhoid, syphilis,
tuberculosis and a host of other plagues. But the Americas had been
isolated from these great ravages. When the sailing ships appeared on
the horizon, they came not only to plunder but to spread their
diseases as well. While it is not documentable that the Spanish
deliberately spread diseases, it is well documented that they were
merciless with the natives. Whole nations were destroyed by the
invaders and their European plagues. Estimates nearing a 98% death
rate from diseases alone are not uncommon. One island group that
demonstrates the horrendous extent of the slaying was the Dominican
Republic and Haitian islands named Hispaniola by Columbus.

Hispaniola had an estimated original
population nearing 8,000,000 by some sources. From 1492 to 1496 the
population had fallen to four or five million. By 1508 it was down to
less than 100,000 and by 1518 the populace stood around 23,000. By
1535 "for all practical purposes the native population was extinct."
(Bartolome de las Casas-1). The terrible
inroads of disease combined with the sword, slavery, starvation and
suicide brought on by the former evils had reduced a once prolific
people in forty-three years to extinction. These same statistics can
be applied to the North American natives with blood-chilling
accuracy. (18).

With the annihilation of Hispaniola
natives, new sources of slaves were needed for gold mining,
plantation harvesting and deportation to Europe for display. The same
savage merciless butchery was carried forward against the natives of
America under the relentless slaughter of Portuguese and Spanish
armies headed by deSoto, Cortez, Pedro de Quejo, Gordillo and others.
When the Spaniard invaders came to North America, well-regarded
specialists place the population at 18 million. Since the continent
was so prolific in peoples, animals and natural resources, the
conquerors thought there was no end from which to draw.

In Florida the Timucuan people were 90%
dead by 1607 and by 1617 they were cut in half again by the invaders'
germs and weapons. This mind-boggling death rate reduced 720,000
natives to 36,000. (18). The weapons used by
the Spanish were very effective. By 1607, with the first small colony
of 104 that settled at Jamestown, the continent was already reeling
under a massive invasion of diseases and violence that had reduced
the population to near extinction in comparison to what it was. Some
of the closest smaller tribes were already extinct. They were wiped
out before anyone could record their existence.

Later, Spanish explorers were amazed at
the difference in the native population from what was recorded by
earlier explorers. Where once before were voluminous amounts of
people, now revealed near deserted villages. Other whole villages
were found empty. The war had begun in deadly earnest.

Weapons of Mass Destruction: America's Legacy

"The proper response of the British
against this 'viperous brood . . . of pagan infidels should be the
same as that meted out by the Spanish: extermination." Edward
Waterhouse (18).

Three important points to remember for
effective biological munitions are: first, the introduction of
chronic illnesses for which there is no known cure. The second, cloak
the toxin under a guise so the "enemy" takes it unawares until it is
too late. Finally, combine weapons so that what one weapon fails to
accomplish, the subsequent weapons will finish. The British had seen
the effectiveness of diseases among the natives and employed a
disguise.

An English general named Jeffery Amherst
understood this when, in April 1763, he offered a reward for Pontiac
who had banded the tribes together against the British invasion.
Amherst states, "Could it not be contrived to send a smallpox among
those disaffected tribes of Indians? We must on this occasion use
every stratagem in our power to reduce them. You will do well to try
to inoculate the Indians by means of blankets to try and extirpate
this execrable race." The tribes "inoculated" in this campaign were
the Shawnee, Odawa and the Onondaga tribes. One native remarked
afterwards, "terrible sickness among us, nothing but dead bodies
among us." (4).

Speaking of the smallpox plague among the
natives, Laurie Garret in her book, The Coming Plague, adds in
a footnote that "smallpox may have been the most useful weapon of
biological warfare in world history." When one views the amount of
desolation from this one disease in North America alone, it is not
hard to come to the same conclusion.

In 1738 an English trader named James
Adair charges that "the Cherake (sic) received a most depopulating
shock by the small pox, which reduced them almost one-half, in about
a year's time: it was conveyed into Charles-town by the Guinea-men,
and soon after among them, by the infected goods." The Guinea men
referred to could have been the traders. After this endemic, trade
with the Cherokee ceased for about a year-and-a-half. When trade
began again, the remainder of the tribe suffered major psychosis when
they saw for the first time the effects of the smallpox in mirrors
sent as trade goods. The trauma was so great that it is reported many
committed suicide.

Diseases were not fast enough to
accomplish the dreaded annihilation, so they combined this biological
warfare with the sword, guns and hunting dogs as the Spanish did to
exterminate the "vermin." That the mercilessness of the British was
not forgotten by invading settlers can be seen on the "trail of
tears." On the trail of tears, which was nearly 300 miles in length,
the Cherokee Indians were deliberately marched past areas known to
have outbreaks of cholera and other epidemic diseases. To add to
their debilitated state from diseases, the freezing weather, and the
forced death march, they were fed spoiled flour and rancid meat.
Nearly 8,000 died on this march out of 17,000.
(19).

Another logical step in biological warfare
is the deliberate withholding of treatments for diseases. One case
among the Native Americans is the Apaches and their fight with
tuberculosis. "Tuberculosis was allowed to affect the Apaches, e.g.,
the government could have returned the people to the southwest, which
at the time was a popular remedy for TB. Instead, the government
refused to allow the sick and dying Apaches to come home. So...not
overtly, but certainly covertly, the government exercised revenge on
the Apaches. And, if they could do that to one tribe, they could do
it to all who resisted the encroachment." (21).
In many cases there may have been no deliberate attempt at
withholding a cure, but the end result was welcomed. We will see in
future articles that this area of CBW is just as important as finding
the right biological toxic agent that has no cure.